THE BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

THE SUEZ CRISIS

What were the events that led to the Suez Crisis, and did it deal a
final blow to Britain's self-image as a world power to be reckoned
with?

Creation of the Canal

In 1854 Ferdinand de Lesseps, a French former diplomat, persuaded
the Viceroy of Egypt, Mohamed Said, to permit the construction of a
shipping canal through the 100 miles of desert between Africa and Asia.
A prospectus was circulated and on 20 December 1858 the Universal
Company of the Suez Maritime Canal was constituted.

Britain, which had regarded France's increased influence in this
region with suspicion, declined the offer of shares and even organised a
boycott resulting in a shortage of investors. Egypt therefore acquired
44% of the shares.

Construction began on 25 April 1859 and the canal was opened in
November 1869 complete with a statue of de Lesseps dominating the
harbour.

Said, who died in 1867, was succeeded by his nephew Ismail.

In
the first year of the canal's existence, some three-quarters of the
vessels using it were British.

By the mid 1870s, Ismail, who had set out to modernise Egypt, but
had incurred massive debts, offered his country's shares in the canal
for sale.

British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli bought Egypt's
shareholding for £4 million establishing Britain's influence in the
running of this new and extremely important waterway.

Vital British interest

The Suez Canal provided Britain with a shorter sea route to its empire
and, as the 20th century dawned and oil grew in importance, it provided
a short sea route to the oilfields of the Persian Gulf. Britain was
therefore committed to protect the canal.

During the two World Wars, the Suez Canal came under attack. Soon
after the outbreak of World War One, Britain declared Egypt a
protectorate and British and Indian forces were sent to protect the
canal.

Turkey, which had entered the war as Germany’s ally in 1914, sent
troops to seize the canal in February 1915. This attack was beaten back
and by 1916 British defensive lines had been driven deep into the Sinai
desert to prevent any further attempt.

The defeat of Turkey in 1918 resulted in much of the Ottoman
(Turkish) empire being divided between Britain and France, leaving
Britain in control of the oilfields of what is now Iraq.

The fighting ebbed and flowed until 1942, when Axis forces seemed poised to break through to the Suez Canal.

In 1922, Britain gave nominal independence to Egypt, but it was
some years before an agreement was reached.

The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty
signed in London in 1936 proclaimed Egypt to be an independent sovereign
state, but allowed for British troops to continue to be stationed in
the Suez Canal zone to protect Britain’s financial and strategic
interest in the canal until 1956, at which time the need for their
presence would be re-examined and, if necessary, renegotiated.

Soon after the outbreak of World War Two, Italy, Germany’s ally,
sent forces to invade Egypt from Libya.

A British and Commonwealth
counter-offensive in December 1940 drove the Italians out of Egypt, but
in March 1941 the Italians, reinforced by the German Afrika Korps,
attacked again and pushed the Allied forces back.

The fighting ebbed and flowed along the North African coast until
the summer of 1942, when the Axis forces seemed poised to break through
to the Suez Canal and beyond.

Their new offensive, launched on 1 July, lasted most of the month,
but the Allied lines held. In August, Lieutenant General Bernard
Montgomery was appointed commander of the British Eighth Army. On 23
October 1942, he launched a major offensive from El Alamein which forced
the German-Italian Panzer Army into retreat.

Subsequent Anglo-American landings in Morocco and Algeria on 8
November cut off the Axis forces in Tunisia, and on 13 May 1943 they
surrendered. The canal was safe once more.

The crisis builds

The Suez Crisis of 1956 has its roots in the post-war upsurge of
nationalism in Egypt. In 1951, Nahas Pasha leader of the
recently-elected nationalist Wafd party revoked the Anglo-Egyptian
Treaty of 1936.

Attacks on the British garrison soon followed and in January 1952
the British government authorised an operation to disarm the Egyptian
paramilitary police force in Ismailia which was orchestrating the
violence.

This was successful, but the violence continued. Riots in
Cairo of an unprecedented scale followed, culminating in attacks on
Saturday 26 January on British property and the expatriate community,
thereafter known as Black Saturday.

It was agreed that British troops would be permitted to return if the Suez Canal was threatened.

British threats to occupy Cairo prompted King Farouk of Egypt to
dismiss Nahas Pasha, but in July 1952 Farouk was overthrown in a
military coup and General Mohammed Neguib seized power. Rather than
insist on Britain's rights under the 1936 Treaty, Anthony Eden, the
British foreign secretary tried to negotiate with the new government.

In 1954, Colonel Gamel Abdul Nasser replaced General Neguib. He
had three goals: to make Egypt independent by ending British occupation;
to build up Egyptian forces for a successful attack on Israel; to
improve Egypt’s economy by constructing a high dam at Aswan to irrigate
the Nile valley.

On 19 October 1954 a treaty was signed by Nasser and by Anthony
Nutting, British minister of state for foreign affairs. The agreement
was to last for seven years. British troops were to be withdrawn from Egypt by June 1956, and
the British bases were to be run jointly by British and Egyptian
civilian technicians.

Egypt agreed to respect the freedom of navigation
through the canal, and it was agreed that British troops would be
permitted to return if the Suez Canal was threatened by an outside
power.

Appeasement fears

In February 1955, Anglo-Egyptian affairs were strained once more
by Eden's decision to deprive Nasser of promised British arms.

In April,
Eden succeeded Winston Churchill as prime minister.

As the last British troops left Egypt, Nasser was completing the
purchase of Soviet-made aircraft, tanks and arms from Czechoslovakia,
which might help him to realise one of his goals, the destruction of
Israel.

On 26 July 1956, President Nasser nationalised the Anglo-French Suez Canal Company to finance his dam.

Despite anti-western demonstrations in Egypt, in January 1956 the
United States and Britain had pledged funding to help finance the
construction of a new High Dam at Aswan.

The US, however, became
convinced that the Dam project would not be a success and wanted to
reduce expenditure on foreign aid.

It was also concerned about Nasser's purchase of Soviet arms. On
19 July, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles informed the Egyptian
ambassador in Washington that his government had decided that it would
not provide funding for the construction of the dam.

The British foreign secretary, Selwyn Lloyd, followed suit and
withdrew the British offer of aid.

The World Bank then refused to
advance Egypt a promised $200 million. On 26 July 1956, President Nasser
nationalised the Anglo-French Suez Canal Company, declaring that he
would take the revenue from the canal to finance his dam. Eden, who recalled Britain's appeasement of Adolf Hitler in the
1930s, looked to military action which might result in Nasser's downfall
and restore Britain's influence in the region.

The United States,
however, made it clear that unjustified military action would not be
tolerated.

Treaties and collusion

The end of the Second World War in 1945 had brought a period of rapid
change. The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 was followed by the
first Arab-Israeli War, and a renewed upsurge of Arab nationalism made
the Middle East a volatile region.

The United States had emerged from World War Two as a global
superpower and, as a former colony itself it was committed to overseeing
the decolonisation of the globe. Furthermore, the spread of communism
fostered by the Soviet Union was seen by the US as a threat to western
democracy.

A secret agreement was made that Israel should attack Egypt as a pretext for an Anglo-French invasion of Suez.

In an attempt to strengthen security in the Middle East against
Soviet influence, Britain, Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan signed a
treaty known as the Baghdad Pact in 1955. But Egypt, which was looking
to the Soviet Union for armaments, refused to sign.

Iraq later withdrew
and the pact, which was renamed the Central Treaty Organisation, became
ineffective in preventing the Cold War from reaching the Middle East.

In January 1956, Guy Mollet was elected prime minister in France
and promised to bring peace to Algeria, a French colony, in the throes
of a nationalist uprising. But the presence of a million French settlers
there made a withdrawal from Algeria politically impossible and his
attempts to resolve the situation escalated the violence.

Meanwhile, Israel, greatly concerned about Egypt’s rearmament and
involved in a series of border clashes with Egypt, was purchasing
aircraft and weapons from France.

The French government had been meeting
secretly with Israel and invited Britain to join the negotiations.

In October 1956, Mollet, Eden and Israeli Prime Minister David
Ben-Gurion met at Sevres near Paris and concluded a secret agreement
that Israel should attack Egypt, thereby providing a pretext for an
Anglo-French invasion of Suez.

Military action

Ben-Gurion then ordered General Moshe Dayan, his chief of staff to
plan an attack on Egypt.

On 29 October 1956, the Israeli attack was
spearheaded by an airborne drop to seize control of the Mitla Pass.
Heavy fighting followed.

The next day, Britain and France issued ultimatums to both sides
to stop the fighting immediately. The Israelis continued their
operations, expecting an Egyptian counter-attack. Instead, Nasser’s army
was withdrawing.

Militarily the operation was well on its way to being a great success.

On 5 November, some three months and 10 days after Nasser had
nationalised the canal, the Anglo-French assault on Suez was launched.
It was preceded by an aerial bombardment, which grounded and destroyed
the Egyptian Air Force.Soon after dawn, soldiers of 3rd Battalion, the Parachute
Regiment, dropped onto El Gamil airfield, while French paratroopers
landed south of the Raswa bridges and at Port Fuad.

Within 45 minutes, all Egyptian resistance on the airfield had
been overcome and Royal Naval helicopters were bringing in supplies.

With El Gamil secured, the British Paras moved eastwards towards Port
Said, meeting their first serious opposition en route. With air support,
they overwhelmed the Egyptian forces then stopped and dug-in overnight
because the beach area of Port Said was to be bombarded next day during
the seaborne landing.

On 6 November, the sea and helicopter-borne assault went in. Royal
Marine Commandos, together with British and French airborne forces
supported by British tanks soon defeated the Egyptian forces, capturing
men, vehicles and many of the newly purchased Czech-manufactured
weapons.

At midnight on 6 November a cease-fire was called on the
insistence of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld. The Anglo-French
forces had reached El Cap, just south of Port Said, but were not yet in
control of the entire canal when they were stopped. Militarily, the
operation was well on its way to being a great success.

Backlash

Politically, the intervention in Suez was a disaster. US President
Dwight Eisenhower was incensed. World opinion, especially that of the
United States, together with the threat of Soviet intervention, forced
Britain, France and Israel to withdraw their troops from Egypt. In
Britain too there had been widespread outrage.

A United Nations peacekeeping force was sent in to supervise the
ceasefire and to restore order. The Suez Canal was cleared and reopened,
but Britain in particular found its standing with the US weakened and
its influence 'east of Suez' diminished by the adventure.

Eden told the Commons: 'There was not foreknowledge that Israel would attack Egypt. There was not.’

Accusations of collusion between Britain, France and Israel
started in 1956, but were denied in parliament by Eden who tried to
avoid giving a clear and categorical answer.

He was at last asked whether there was foreknowledge of the
Israeli attack and on 20 December in his last address to the House of
Commons, recorded in Hansard, he replied: 'I want to say this on the
question of foreknowledge, and to say it quite bluntly to the House,
that there was not foreknowledge that Israel would attack Egypt. There
was not.’

In January 1957, his health shattered and his political credibility
severely damaged, Sir Anthony Eden, the British prime minister,
resigned. Guy Mollet, the French prime minister, survived longer
despite fierce criticism, but his government collapsed in June 1957 over
the taxation he imposed to pay for the Algerian War.

Anglo-American relations were strained by the Suez Crisis, but as
Cold War Allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) they
continued to cooperate, and by 1962 Britain had adopted the US Polaris
missile system. Nonetheless, the real balance of power in the post-World
War Two world had been starkly demonstrated and Britain's prestige was
dealt a severe blow.

Find out more

BooksDivided We Stand: Britain, the US and the Suez Crisis by W Scott Lucas (Hodder and Stoughton, 1991)

Places to visit

About the author

Laurie Milner was an historian at the Imperial War Museum's Research
and Information Department from 1984 to 2006 and was principal historian
on the permanent 'First World War', 'Conflicts Since 1945' and
'Montgomery - Master of the Battlefield' galleries. He co-authored the
IWM's 'Battle of the Somme' online exhibition with Nigel Steel. He has
acted as consultant to military museums internationally, including the
British galleries at the El Alamein Museum for the 60th anniversary of
the battle. He is the author of two books, 'Leeds Pals' (Pen and Sword
1991); and 'Royal Scots in the Gulf' (Pen and Sword 1994).

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